Mumbai City of Dreams

Mumbai is the city of dreams! You might have heard this before. But you only start to realise this when you hit the the town right where it’s heart beats. 

Mumbai as they call it, the city that never sleeps. 

The lines between 2pm and 3am are some what blurry when you are in Mumbai. 

The top hotspots such as Churchgate where the Taj hotel stands in all it’s glory. 

When you come towards Juhu, you begin the realise the true potential of the city bustling and city noise that starts ringing a bell in your head. 

Right from being the hub of celebrity homes to the very famous Juhu beach.

Do you know what else is fame worthy? When you traverse across bustling roads you cross paths with vile-parle the hub of few of the top notch colleges. 

The very famous family, shri vile parle kelvani mandal , the SVKM. 

Under it’s household proudly stands, the best ranked colleges of not only Mumbai but also the whole of India. 

It has more than a dozen of colleges which are ranked by the senior most authorities. 

Beside this being the educational hub, it also serves as the most popular spot of hanging out. 

The food places and tapri’s are shops your will never see with last man standing. 

With students giving nicknames to them and renaming to establish the legacy. 

Most famous are Raghu , petrol pump and kaka tapri. 

Right from the stories you hear in your college and through your friends, we all see it happen in front of our eyes. 

People crave some chai-sutta everytime anytime during the day. 

Do you think the rule of not being allowed to sell cigarettes with-in 100 meters of a college/school is going to stop these legends. 

Oh no, it won’t. 

I remember my friends having code names and smuggling them stash right through the college gate under the guards nose. 

Right from calling it, sticks, chalk and what not. 

We heard and did it all. 

No matter what the authorities tried to do we always found out loop holes between the rules and satisfied our craving. 

You name the time of the day we would be ready to stand by and smoke it all out.

In between lectures, in between practicals, before lectures or after lectures we wanted it all and Ofcourse we did it all. 

Raghu tapri is not just a place it’s an Emotion for people who have visited it at some point or the other in their lives. 

When ever the tapri was closed, our lives felt as if it were incomplete and we were missing upon something. Not just the students the tapri is also very well famous amongst the teachers. 

I remember the days when we used to bunk a  particular teacher’s lecture and very well that same teacher would spot us at the same tapri while they sipped on hot chai while we blew our lungs out. 

That awkward stare between the teachers and the students was crazy. Every student who has been spotted by teacher at the tapri knows that feeling of “Been there, done that”. 

I remember one particular incident that was literally like the highlight of our second semester. 

It so happened that our friend circle which was 7-10 people give our take. 

Out of which 4-5 of us were daily smokers.

Due to the practical student’s distribution the four of us would have different timings for our practical’s. But there was one day in the week where all of us were put together in one batch for our practical. 

Naturally all of us were in high spirits and exploding with happy hormones as we knew this was going to be more exciting than the usual practicals.

Our professor walked to the head of the lab and announced that there was a blood donation drive that was being consulated in our college foyer. So they encouraged us to go down and contribute.

Out of the 45 students in the lab, around 50% were already out and the class strength was already reduced by half. 

Me and my friends knew that we couldn’t donate blood as most of us had boozed during the day (well that story on day drinking is due for another time) and we were regular smokers and hence couldn’t donate blood anyways. 

But we weren’t going to let that stop us from hiding behind the curtains of good initiative and bunk the class to go and smoke. None of us were planning to sit and be the teacher’s pet. 

All of us from different tables across the huge lab just looked at each other and spoke via telepathy and just bounced the class and ran out. 

Still wearing our lab coats and id cards.

We walked out of the college to obviously go to Raghu tapri. 

But midway by the side walk all of a sudden we started getting somewhat of a familiar smell. 

Immediately upon looking at each other we cracked it that it was nothing other than the smell of smoke coming from the parked auto. 

One of the boys from our group bent in and looked inside and a local boy was smoking cigarette.

We immediately were so shocked and confused but then the thing that happened is probably the most common way in which the smokers usually gel up. He a complete stranger offered the joint to us that is imported cigarette. 

We took drags upon drags and the blowbacks from the smoke. Lord knows that inhale was so pure immediately the power kicked in and we were high and running towards the tapri. After which we each took chai and Ofcourse a sutta. Next to the tapri is a lane where we usually we would sit on bikes and just be living our best life. 

And then boom we all lock eyes with our teachers standing right in front of us. Guess what they all came down for a tea break at the same tapri where we were bunking their class in the name sake of donating blood. 

We all thought we are going to be punished. But luckily for us they didn’t tell us anything and we carried on. 

But then when we tried to sneak back into the class, the class was almost full back to it’s strength and we realised that each student came back with a donation certificate. 

When we were asked for it, all four of us came up with ridiculous reasons such as a fresh tattoo, underweight, overweight and one even ended up saying diabetes, oh lord the teachers knew it but then they were so kind they just laughed in our faces and told us we see you, atleast try to come up with better excuses while you stand at the tapri and the entire class bursted out in laughter.

Another famous spot in Juhu is Alfredo’s. This is shop cum doraemon’s pocket. 

Anything  that your must desire, you will find it at Ibrhahim’s shop.

Right from stash to hash. He has you covered. It is a very well running shop as it is also one of the only standee tapri with a posh feeling. Situated next to big and bustling clubs, right from pre-party smokes to in party supply is all done here. 

I particularly remember the time where i was a schoolie near by, everyday we would be instructed by the authorities to not even look that way and to put out heads down and just walk past the tapri. 

The tapri at any given time of the day would be bustling with college students, fashionable hot girls to handsome dudes on the hot two wheels. Next to the tapri is a chain of posh dining places. This tapri also caters to them. To add to the lovely sight of hot boys and girls, well suited businessmen in luxury cars would also stop by to stand and get a smoke before to head off to make money next. As young schoolies we all felt so eager to look at them, and would always stare at them and think about “oh my god they look so cool“  before quickly remembering to walk fast before the teachers caught us there and whooped our ass. And now fast forward to many years, our school friends most of us are in the college years now and yes most of us our regular smokers, stood there at the same tapri and smoked as like cool adults and spoke about school life while looking at our school. And Ofcourse the fun couldn’t stop there, right after budding our smokes we went straight and walked through the school gates where we were invited to be guests as the annual day proceeded. 

The teachers could smell us and we were literally feeling like the cool adults, that we always saw at Alfredo’s and now we became one of the same group.